Crews gaining ground on Telegraph fire

MARIPOSA -- Firefighters on Wednesday gained ground in their assault on the 32,000-acre Telegraph fire, bringing containment up to 40 percent, letting some residents back into their homes, and seeing power restored in some areas.

Wednesday night, about 200 Midpines residents were allowed to return to unburned homes. How soon other mandatory evacuations will be lifted remains unclear, but the arrival of 230 Air National Guard troops could speed the process.

"They want us to help get these people back in their homes as soon as possible," said Lt. Col. Jeff Richard.

Guardsmen and women will be on fire lines in 24-hour shifts, helping to clear brush and debris, he said. They will sleep in tents at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds.

The Guard joins 3,800 fire personnel in fighting the fire, which has destroyed 21 homes.

Hand crews made up of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation inmates and U.S. Forest Service hot shot crews have been carrying hoes and chain saws and fire hose up steep terrain to make fire lines.

"That is grueling, hard work to lay a hose in this fire," said Mike Mohler, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection public information officer.

Jerrod Watson, a 28-year-old inmate from Soledad State Prison, earned $1 an hour Wednesday building a fire line on dangerous inclines at Highway 140 and Jenkins Hill.

He was exhausted at the end of a 24-hour shift. But "it's worth it to protect Yosemite," he said. "It's such a nice place, you don't want to see it up in flames."

Highway 140 reopened Wednesday to one-way traffic with California Highway Patrol escorts, but motorists were encouraged to use alternate routes to Yosemite National Park.

Electricity continued to be restored Wednesday to areas that lost power because of the fire, sparked Friday by a target shooter. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesman Jeff Smith said two mobile generators had been moved into the area and one was operating Wednesday. The second was expected to come online before this morning, he said.

Power was restored to National Park Service facilities in El Portal, just outside Yosemite National Park, early Wednesday afternoon, park spokesman Scott Gediman said.

Nevertheless, Smith said, about 600 customers remain without power because fire crews are still working there.

In the air, helicopters scooped buckets of water from the Merced River to douse flames on the northern fringe of the fire above Briceburg. Fixed-wing tankers dropped fire retardant and a plane capable of scooping water out of lakes was called in to drop water.

"We threw everything on that area" on Tuesday, Mohler said. And it paid off. The fire had not marched farther north or east toward El Portal.

Weather helps firefighters

Favorable weather and continued attacks by ground crews and aircraft led to significant progress Wednesday. When the day began, the fire was 20 percent contained. By midafternoon, thanks mainly to progress along the southern front, containment was estimated to be 40 percent.

There was some continued spread of fire to the north, toward Greeley Hill and Coulterville, but even that was slow in the face of light wind, mild temperatures and higher humidity. The benign weather enabled officials to put a dozen air tankers and 13 helicopters to work on the blaze.

But firefighters worried the fire could make new assaults on ridges. "We've had some major runs out of the canyons with this fire," Mohler said.

Homeowners who lost their homes returned to denuded, blackened mountains.

Kelley McClard placed porcelain animals into a blackened pot. They were about the only undamaged items in the ruins of her home.

"I don't know why I'm taking this stuff," McClard said, fighting back tears as she rubbed ashes off the figurines. "All the little things you didn't think were very important."

Mariposa County sheriff's deputies escorted McClard and other evacuees for brief visits to homes that had been turned into piles of ash, twisted metal and melted plastic.

"It looked like a wasteland," Renee Chaty said of the landscape around her home at the end of the paved section of Sherlock Road at Telegraph Road.

Chaty, who was laid off from her job at a hazardous technology company Friday, said: "I'm out of a job, out of a house. I lost everything I own."

McClard and son Eric McClard lost a plumbing business as well as two homes on the 10 acres they own on West Whitlock Road.

As shards of broken drywall crunched under his feet, Eric McClard said: "This is where I make my living. How am I going to start over from this?"

McClard's father, Rickey, started the plumbing business 32 years ago. He built both homes. He died four years ago.

"We had an attic up top and a deck out back and he built me a custom laundry room," Kelley McClard said.

A blackened spaghetti pot brought back a rush of memories. "He got me that," she said, sobbing. "It was the best thing I ever had."

Fresno Bee staff writers Russell Clemings and Louis Galvan contributed to this report.

This story was originally published July 31, 2008 at 3:56 AM with the headline "Crews gaining ground on Telegraph fire."